The U.S. Park Police and the FBI are looking for several protesters they said were involved in the attempt to topple a statue near the White House earlier this week.
D.C. police said that it appeared protesters Monday tried to take down a statue of former President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park.
Park Police and the FBI said they are attempting to identify 15 people who they said are “responsible for vandalizing federal property at Lafayette Square,” a news release said.
You can find the people the two agencies are looking for here.
Law enforcement moved demonstrators back from the park Monday, as protesters said that they wanted to tear the statue down.
The statue shows Jackson in a military uniform, riding a horse that is rearing on its hind legs.
The 19th century president’s ruthless treatment of Native Americans has made his statue a target of demonstrators protesting the United States’ legacy of racial injustice.
President Donald Trump described the attempt to take down the statue and the writing scrawled on the pillars of St. John’s Episcopal Church that night as “disgraceful vandalism.” And Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt vowed that justice will be served.
The fencing in Lafayette Square that was taken down after the height of protests in D.C. following the killing of George Floyd went back up again in an effort to guard the statue.
And the D.C. National Guard has been asked to provide unarmed guard members to assist with additional security for monuments, CNN reported. In addition, CNN also reported that U.S. Marshals have also been told to prepare to help protect national monuments.
Another statue protesters said they want to take down is the Emancipation Memorial in the Capitol Hill area. Protesters were met by a line of law enforcement when they marched to Lincoln Park Thursday night.
Protesters last week succeeded in taking down the statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike that was in Judiciary Square.
